TRANSACTIONS OF THE LINN.EAN SOCIETY. 445 



Mr. D. Now the tune is almost done, and they will all 

 stop ; they do not move one moment longer than the music 

 lasts : — there, they are all stopped. In the other part of the 

 room is something more to be seen." 



We accordingly went to the other end of the room, where 

 were several perfect fleas, their larvae, eggs, &c., under very 

 tolerable glasses ; the larvae are long, apod, white worms, and 

 struck us as being very like those so common in decaying 

 cheese; some years back we should have added — Musca 

 putris ; but, alas ! the insect has had so many names that we 

 have no idea now which is the right one, we will therefore call 

 it the cheese-fly. The figures of the larva of the flea, in 

 Roesel, are very accurate. 



The fleas, in this exhibition, certainly are made to perform 

 a great proportion of the feats which their proprietor describes, 

 but we must not send our readers to Regent-street with the 

 impression that these operations are the result of docility and 

 education entirely. In those fleas which draw the mail-coach, 

 gig, &c., we observed, that the cause of their exertion was, an 

 attempt to retreat from the light, and that they invariably 

 travelled towards the dark side of the room, and were as inva- 

 riably taken back to the light and performed the same journey 

 over again: several of the other operations, we conceive, 

 would be much more easily traced to the restless activity, than 

 the sagacity, of the fleas ; but, even after making due allow- 

 ance for this, there will be found sufficient of the amusing in 

 the exhibition to repay the visitor for the admittance-fee, 

 particularly if, like ourself, he be overtaken by a hasty shower 

 and have half an hour to spare. H. D. 



Art. LV. — Transactions of the Linncean Society, Vol. XVI. 

 Part III. 



Page 471. Notice of several recent Discoveries in the 

 Structure and Economy of Spiders. By John Blackmail, 

 Esq., F.L.S. — This is a paper of much interest. The author, 

 in the first place, details the mode in which Cluhiona utrox 

 constructs its web. The fabrication of a flocculus, or com- 

 pound thread, is highly curious : on the abdominal side of the 



